Written by: Dave Cantrell

This music writing racket, I tell ya, it can be grueling if in the most sublime ways. What do I mean by that? I mean that inevitably a veritable flood of material comes sluicing down the internet’s portals on the daily if not hourly and whereas one’s music-obsessive tendency is a wild-haired exclamation of “I must hear it alllll!!!!” the reality is decidedly more banal in that – and sorry to break it to anyone harboring delusions that we music writers do what we do because we’re capable of absorbing exactly such floods – we’re mere human receptors that, even if as in my case where I’m safely retired from the working world and kind of living the life, it still requires a spark that sets our receptors on fire in one way or another and here in this instance, with the LA-born London-bred Grace Inspace’s latest – and final – release from upcoming EP Heavy Hair, consider that spark not just lit but dazzling like some kind of near-blinding – if suitably sublime – musical solar flare.

Lucent of voice, presented with a full-on level of seasoned confidence and panache that belies the artist’s relative youth, we here in the SEM office are not just smitten but rather gobsmacked to the degree we’re going to go ahead and just turn it over the artist herself to give you the background to this ear worm-worthy track and then let you drift down and hit that iconic red and white ‘play’ symbol, so fully convinced are we that your reaction will at the very least echo ours. It’s releases like this that continue to shield us seasoned music cranks from becoming cynical and believe us when we say that we consider that one of the most generous gifts an artist can give us. Grateful? Fuck yeah. Read then hit that damned arrow…[Heavy Hair drops February 27th via TODO Records; that’s the cover up top]

“‘Helium Balloon’ is about the quiet collisions of emotion that make up the human experience. It’s loneliness in a crowded room, and the bittersweet hush that settles after a party ends. The image of a single balloon, an object designed to signal joy, drooping in the corner, became the perfect metaphor for that strange, tender space where happiness and sadness coexist. There’s a particular kind of melancholy in wilted decorations: glitter gone dull, streamers slumped, bright colors washed out in the morning light. That’s the feeling the song lives inside – fragile, reflective, and unexpectedly moving. I wrote it with my acoustic guitar and vocal loop pedal and then took it to the duo Mulherin for production.”